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It was the best of Oscar nomination announcements, it was the worst of Oscar nomination announcements. It was the best, because a great deal of this year’s top films were recognized. It was the worst of times, because I scored the worst on my annual predictions in years.
And yet for such great reason: Awesome character actors like Richard Jenkins, Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon squeaked in over more popular favorites like Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, and Kate Winslet. Deserving greats like Sean Penn, Meryl Streep, and, yes, Kate Winslet were again nominated.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received the most nominations, with 13, due to its many nominations in technical categories, including Best Picture. The other nominees were Slumdog Millionaire (with ten nominations), Milk (with eight), Frost/Nixon (with five), and, in a mild surprise, The Reader, with five nominations. This is also one of those rare years in which the Best Picture and Bets Director nominees overlap completely. Stephen Daldry of Reader continues his perfect record: three films, three directing nominees.
The Reader took the slot many expected to go to Revolutionary Road. In this year’s biggest surprise, Winslet, who had campaigned as Lead Actress for Road and Supporting Actress for Reader, received one nomination: as Best Lead Actress for The Reader. That means enough voters actually took it upon themselves to change categories for Reader, which is a leading role in every way. I imagine Winslet also amassed a huge amount of votes for Road, but not as many as for Reader, and since a performer can only be named once per category, the Road votes went by the wayside. This means both that there is enough sentiment to vote for Winslet and that co-nominees Angelina Jolie or Melissa Leo squeaked in without actually earning one of the top 5 amounts of votes.
The Dark Knight was also a best picture contender, but was nominated in mostly technical categories, for a total of eight. This also includes Heath Ledger’s posthumous nomination for Best Supporting Actor, which I imagine he will win.
Doubt score 5 nominations, four of which went to the complete ensemble of the film: Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meryl Streep. Streep breaks her own record with this, her fifteenth nomination.
The film WALL-E scored a record of its own. With six nominations, it ties the record set by Beauty and the Beast for nominations by an animated film.
One of those nominations was for Best Song. Interestingly, in that category, only three songs were nominated, two of which came from Slumdog. Notably, Springsteen’s title song from The Wrestler was not nominated. That makes this the fifth year in a row the Golden Globe winner for Best Song will not win the Oscar.
I’ll have my big predictions article up in a few weeks. Meanwhile, a full list of nominees can be found at http://www.oscars.org/awards/81academyawards/nominees.html.
Oh yeah, how did my predictions fare? I got a 20 out of 25.
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